KUALA LUMPUR: The opportunity to gain a niche expertise does not come by easy, and six local engineering graduates did not squander the chance to learn advanced Subsea technologies in the oil and gas (O&G) industry when a programme was offered by multinational company, Aker Solutions.
Wisvan Anamalai, Yogeswaran V Supramaniam, Casey Choe Ley Yeem, Nabila Aisyah Iskandar and Ahmad Al Hafiz Norazmi, all in their early 20s, beat 700 other applicants for a spot in the exclusive, two-year Subsea Graduate Engineering Program at Aker Solutions.
The programme had welcomed fresh graduates and young engineers with not more than two years of working experience to apply for the programme held at Aker Solutions' High Tech Manufacturing Center in the Port Klang Free Zone, which is one of the largest Subsea facilities in the world.
“The Aker Solutions Malaysia Subsea Graduate Engineering Program provides a structured and systematic training and development to enable graduates and young professionals to gain the experience and skills in advanced Subsea technologies,” said John Munro, Aker Solutions’ Vice-President of Operations for Asia Pacific.
Exposed to engineering skills and technologies pertaining to exploration, drilling and development of oil and gas fields in underwater locations, the students were eager to share their experience.
“Subsea engineering is the next big thing in the oil and gas industry,” said Nabila Aisyah.
“The last two years of learning was a rare opportunity to deepen my skills and knowledge in this advanced area of engineering. Learning new Subsea products have been challenging, but nothing beats the anticipation of participating in new projects in different departments to build my technical competency as a product engineer,” she added.
Having worked in another manufacturing company before joining the programme, Yogeswaran said the attraction for him was the opportunity to interact with many professionals in the industry.
“The last 24 months in this programme have been very fruitful and I look forward to more opportunities to grow and strengthen my skills in the future,” he said.
Wisvan who was also chosen to represent Aker Solutions Malaysia in a project team for a site integration test in Norway said, “With the coaching in this programme, I developed my very own training guide on a key Subsea product with details on how the product is tested from the sub-assembly process to the main assembly process in accordance with industrial standards.”
For Choe, having the guidance of a mentor throughout the programme had made her foray into subsea engineering an eye-opening experience.
“We were given the opportunity to learn and develop our technical and soft skills in different departments within the company. Mentors were assigned to us to oversee our development and there was open communication with the management team in giving feedback and discussing ideas.”
Her batchmate, Ahmad Al Hafiz agreed. “I was responsible for the electrical, hydraulic and structural aspects of product engineering in the programme. I was trained to ensure all engineering processes run smoothly to deliver products that exceed our customer expectations. It was not an easy task, but I had a lot of help from capable project managers, technicians and engineers.”
Having recently completed their training, the six students are now part of Aker Solutions' workforce with competent subsea engineering skills that very few in the country have.
